being transgender is boring
I am who I am and I have a need to be.
There are two distinct moments in my 20s when I knew I was transgender. The first came during a conversation with one of my best friends. We were talking about gender and I was adamant that gender is completely meaningless. I thought we ought to do away with it altogether. Proudly a defiant feminist, I resented the impact gender had on the way people treated me, the options I was presented with growing up, and the roles I was expected to fulfill.
They shrugged and said, “But I know trans women whose experience of being a woman is strongly defined and important, who relish in femininity and feel empowered by the label of woman.” I can't know someone better than they know themselves. I observed that every person is their own universe from a young age. Who am I to define gender for anyone else? Which left me with one conclusion: I had, in my objection to gender, defined it for myself.
The second moment was only months later. Scrolling through Reddit, I stumbled upon a post-op photo from a genderqueer person after getting top surgery. “THAT ISN’T JUST FOR TRANS MEN?” Rang loudly in my brain. In an instant, I knew (felt) that I wanted it too.
In the early days of exploring my genderqueerness, I didn’t bring anyone into it. I struggled to let go of the label “woman” because I loved being included in the incredible community that comes with being a woman.
Women liberated themselves from the trappings of patriarchy and continue to do so even as it attempts to gain back the power it’s lost. I was proud to be part of this divine leadership into a better, more equal future.
I had also just started to feel hot. I spent the decade prior unlearning everything about my body that made me think I was unlovable simply for being heavier than what society deems acceptable, which was even smaller when I was growing up.
I didn’t want to unpack another *thing*. Accepting myself as pansexual took years, and I still catch myself trying to pick which side of the binary I’m attracted to while getting totally distracted by gorgeous beings all across the gender spectrum.
I really only came out as genderqueer because I met my girlfriend. Getting to be my whole self with her was far more intoxicating than worrying about family, the world, or even my own brain’s bullshit. Luckily, this was early 2020 and social media was full of trans acceptance like it had never been. In a sea of queer and trans representation, I got to project my own ideas of gender and feel out what aligned with me.
During this time, on a walk through the woods of southern Oregon, I imagined what it would feel like to be in a more masculine body. In doing so, I experienced being in my body. I realized, for the first time, how much I disassociate and exist just outside myself. Unless I am performing (where femininity feels fun), I unconsciously—almost naturally—disidentify with the body I am in. Even my spirituality was informed by this disconnection from my body and it explained to me why I went down a long rabbit hole of soul-seeking to understand that life truly is about now and now and now and now. It’s all we ever get to experience—even if we’re thinking of the past or future, we’re doing it now.
I spent the COVID years reflecting on my genderqueerness and gathering insight from other transgender people, including those who detransitioned. Like a magic eight ball, I turned my findings over to feel the smooth surface all the way around. But no matter how many times I shook the damn thing, that little purple triangle said, “Beech, you trans.”
Recently, I’ve thought about how much easier it would be if I weren’t—if I felt at home in the gender I was given. But then, if I sit with this long enough, the thought makes me sad because I’m asking myself to be less me—to stretch out and feel into the room of my life, less. I’m asking the Universe to make me other than I am, but the Universe has a much better bird’s eye view of what brings me alive and makes me stoked with joy for living.
No matter what this administration and its allies in ignorance do, they can’t take away the truth: I am who I am and I have a need to be. Their sweeping displays of discrimination have zero power to change that. Like stubborn hairs on a beautiful belly, pluck one and three more will grow. I am transgender.
The prospect of losing access to the healthcare that will bring me more in alignment with my soul causes a throat-rising panic that can hardly be extinguished with words or platitudes. Yet the truth remains that transition does not make me transgender. Transition and gender-affirming care are life-supporting tools that allow trans people to thrive. But they are not what makes me transgender. I was transgender in the picture below too.
What the picture doesn’t show you are the 22 acres I lived on in a house my father built. Buddy, my childhood dog in the photo who now rests as tattoo on my left forearm, was only weeks old. In the woods of Texas, with three cows on the property and plenty of mud-filled lakes for me to swim, I was the most authentic me I have ever been. I am still getting back to them. They/she/he who fell asleep reading after trampoline jumping and singing a song I just made up.
Being transgender is the most boring thing about me. I am talented, brilliant, kind, loving, passionate. My relationship to my gender is mine. It doesn’t belong to anyone else. It’s not a performance to be witnessed. I get on stage and sing my songs or speak my poems—that’s when I perform.
What I know is that my journey with gender has brought me closer to my authentic self. What I know is that the more I align with my genderqueerness, the more I am free to pursue my dreams, the easier it is to feel good, and the healthier I become mentally and physically.
Yet still, with the propaganda-fueled vitriol and the rollback of trans rights in America, I have been trying to stuff myself back into the box labeled, “woman.” I don’t fit. I never did, which is why it was always so uncomfortable.
I want being transgender to become boring. Queerness is beautiful and we’re not going anywhere. We’re also not in this fight alone, and it’s been important for me to remember that on the hardest days. But who I love and how I align myself with this body aren’t significant aspects of what I contribute to the world, or at least they shouldn’t be.
Being transgender is beautiful. And incredibly boring. I was scared to write this essay because it pushed me to stand firmly and be loud at a time when our very government is telling transgender people we don’t exist.
Hello, my name is Conner. I am genderqueer. Get over it.
What I'm Listening To
Abracadabra by Lady Gaga
For me, this song is an enchantress' war cry. When I was feeling the most consumed by (*gestures at America*) everything, Abracadabra helped me channel a deep feeling of empowerment, defiance, and self-love.
Thank you for reading.
With love and badassery,
Conner Lee